Hanukkah and Looking Forward to the Holiday Season

[Once again a double post! Enjoy!]

Living abroad is exciting. Being an expat is fabulous! But it’s not without sacrifices and pain. How can I not long for my family, friends and the familiar during the holidays?

Now that Hanukkah is here I think most vividly of Hanukkah last year when I was living in LA and my aunt’s and uncle’s home was at the height of reconstruction. Dust was everywhere. We only had a microwave to reheat latkes and chicken soup. My friend David joined us and my aunt made sure he had a present too. This year I celebrated only night 3 of Hanukkah but I made it count!

A shout out to all my Dallas friends – I brought back the Latke Bar!

As you can see in the picture, this year was not about your average Latkes.
-For the traditionalist we had the The Original (just potatoes)
-Because we all miss Mexican food The Taco Latke (chilies and Taco seasoning).
-For the adventurers The Health Nut (green radish, carrots, spinach and curry, sans potato). This one turned out great! It reminded me of a snack from India’s Sweet and Spice on Venice in Culver City.
-Our toppings were also a mix – homemade applesauce (mashed the apples myself!), sour cream and pico de gallo! We can get great cilantro here.

Everyone was really gracious and excited to celebrate the holiday too. They learned about Hanukkah as kids but never celebrated it. My only regrets are that we didn’t make more latkes and we didn't have dreidels!!

It’s also strange how cultures adopt each others traditions. For the Muslims in Kyrgyzstan a “Christmas Tree” is erected on New Years and a man dressed like Santa Claus is the equivalent of Father Time! I don’t know where this tradition comes from – Was it way for the Soviet’s to remove religion from the tradition or a recent capitalist invention? I need to do more research. In any case, the grocery store next to my house is decked out in Christmas/New Years decorations and in a way it’s comforting. It’s just enough to feel festive and familiar but not overbearing. I certainly don’t miss the malls of America right now!

I’m also very excited to say Aaron and I will be spending Christmas in London and New Years in Paris! I’ve never been to either city and I can’t wait to see themI do plan on cooking dinner Christmas Eve (all my Atlanta, TX favorites) and then maybe we’ll go out for Chinese on Christmas Day. ! If you have any suggestions of great little hidden gems in either city, please send them along!

Happy Holidays!

Wrapping Up Thanksgiving

I’ve spent Thanksgiving away from family but I’ve never been abroad during the holidays. This year I didn’t watch Jennifer baking Mama Tine’s cornbread for dressing or Julia making asparagus casserole or Brooke adding apricot jam to the cranberry sauce or Mark making drinks or Dad and my brothers sneaking bites of the ham or Amy whipping the cream for ambrosia or Mom making her sweet potato casserole or Jessica chasing Hudson through the kitchen or Susan advising with her 3 ring binder of recipes or Pamela breaking open the boxed wine or Papa OJ observing all the organized chaos from the kitchen table.

What I did have was 15 wonderful expats who each brought their own tradition to the Thanksgiving table.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays so I knew ahead of time there were certain dishes I needed to make the holiday complete. Luckily I have very generous friends and family at home who understood that too.

A BIG shout out to my parents, my aunts Julia and Pamela, my cousin Gretchen and my friends Julie and Oren for their awesome care packages!

So what dish did I contribute to Thanksgiving Kyrgyzstan 2007? One of my top 3 favorites….. Sweet Potato Casserole. For the un-initiated, SPC is mashed sweet potatoes mixed with butter and brown sugar then topped with marshmallows. The marshmallows are added the last 5-10 minutes of baking and come out of the oven golden, puffy and just a touch crunchy around the edges. Oh- it’s heaven! See the picture? Doesn’t it just look like heaven? I bet you are wondering why a whole edge is missing? That’s a story for later….

By the morning of Thanksgiving only Cousin Gretchen’s box had arrived. The can of sweet potatoes she sent only served 5 people but 3x that were expected at our dinner. I fretted to my friend Becky about what to do! How do I satisfy 15 people with this one can? Then it hit me….. what also tastes good with brown sugar, butter and sweet potatoes? APPLES! So I bought a kilo of pretty red apples (6 large ones) and took them home to make an applesauce to combine with the potatoes. Becky peeled while I grated. I mixed in the same proportions of brown sugar and butter the SPC recipe called for and 30 minutes later had a nice mixture. It tasted just like apple pie. I feared overpowering the potatoes with the flavor of apples so I mixed it in 1 cup at a time. 3 cups later I had tripled the recipe and you couldn’t even taste the secret ingredient.

When I got to Colin’s the stove was occupied with the turkey. Yes. We have turkeys in Kyrgyzstan. And they are delicious! Of course the turkey took longer to roast than expected so when it was time for me to bake the SPC, it was also time for Becky to reheat her green been casserole and for Theo to cook the stuffing.

Colin’s oven is half the size of an American oven and contained only one baking rack. So, how are 3 people supposed to cook their dishes at once??

Peace Corps volunteers are nothing if not resourceful. Theo found a couple of pairs of chopsticks so we stacked each pot on top of the next and used the chopsticks to separate them. We only had a couple of mishaps. First Becky removed all 3 dishes at once and her casserole fell into my SPC. That was before the marshmallows were added so no harm was done. Then when it was time to remove my dish…..I got a little excited and the puffy golden marshmallows crashed with the edge of the oven. That is why my SPC is smiling.

During dinner Becky was the only one who knew of the secret ingredient. I kept asking everyone what they thought of the casserole – especially since it’s not a traditional dish at every Thanksgiving – and everyone thought it delicious! After it was all gone I spilled the beans. I know I came off a little bit boastful but I was just so proud of myself of finding a way to triple the dish and share a little piece of home with all of my friends here.